And now for something completely different

Never Assume Ill Intent

I really like my CEO on a professional level as well as a personal level.

I have been a part of, and been witness to conversations with my CEO that went something like this:

"What is going on with [insert client name here]?"

"They are pure evil and they want us to die painfully and slowly."

"No, seriously. What is the real problem? You should never assume ill intent."

And he is totally right. Out of all this mess with Dell Customer and Technical Support, I have never once thought anyone I dealt with actually wished me harm.

In fact, most of the conflicts I have had in my life came from the fact that the other person thought they were doing the right thing. Even people who drive slow in the far left lane probably have a legitimate-to-them reason to justify their behavior, even though we all know that driving slow in the far left lane is instant damnation in at least 99.5% of the world's religions. (Why are you holding out on us, Church of Satan?)

Don't get me wrong - there is evil in the world and people can be malicious. What my CEO says, and what I repeat, is that your default setting should be "never assume ill intent." If you discover that someone is, in fact, malicious, act accordingly. But don't just assume someone is being terrible off the bat. (What's that saying? We tend to judge others by their actions and ourselves by our intentions.)

I write this because one of the most interesting things that has happened to me after this whole Dell debacle* is the way that some - well, one - person on a bulletin board decided my whole story was BS. I got the sense this person was a Dell employee because of things said about the Dell Tech Support screens and internal call processes, so it was easy to tell this person's motivation - this person saw me as attacking the home turf and rushed to defend it.

Which is totally fair. The internet is for people to exchange ideas, not a place for everyone to agree on everything all the time. And if I put out something as inflammatory as my previous post (which, I admit was exaggerated for entertainment purposes but essentially true), I should be prepared for someone to point out that I am just throwing the internet equivalent of a tantrum and that I should calm down and think long and hard about how difficult it is for those poor Dell Technical and Customer Service people to take a lunch break while I am on hold for extended periods of time. (Which, to be fair, only happened once. "Our supervisor is at lunch right now, so I can't transfer you. Would you mind holding? Or would you just like to call back later?")

What baffles me about this one person who kept questioning my integrity and honesty is the speculative lengths this person would go to as far as deciding what my real motive was. It could not be because I actually have a broken Dell and actually had a poor, extended round-and-round with Dell Customer Service and Dell Technical Support. It had to be some other reason.

Eventually, it was decided that this whole thing was a sham to artificially increase my blog traffic. I am sure stunts like this have been done in the past, but I could care less about blog traffic; all I want is a working computer and my data restored. Of course, for me to say to this person, "I don't care about blog traffic," is tantamount to a confession because obviously I am a lying liar who lies about the lies I have lied about.

Anyway, I understand the intent of this person - he or she is obviously proud of Dell Tech Support and doesn't like it when people like me take their frustrations to the internet at large. Which is a fine position to take, but speculating about my reasons for writing what I did seems pointless, especially since I can provide confirmation numbers and some chat transcripts to back up my story. The reaction just baffled me a little.

Just had to get that off my chest. So far, my two positive takeaways from this whole mess are twofold:

1) This "Never Assume Ill Intent" credo works for me and I am sticking to it.
2) If I ever become a method actor, I finally have an angry feeling to draw upon to get myself into the moment.

*For those of you still interested in "the Dell Situation," the issues with my PC are still unresolved as of this writing, but partly because I haven't had the time to get on the phone with Brad at Dell (see comments of the previous entry) - our office hours overlap and it is difficult for me to make personal calls on the job. The best time for me to talk on the phone is in the evening, and Brad leaves the office at 4pm. I've ordered some data recovery software for the external hard drive. Only one of the two internal drives show up when I boot the computer, but at least it boots which is a step up from before. And, yes, I appreciate all of the emails and Twitters suggesting I make the switch to Mac. I also appreciate the testimonials about the wonders of the Mac Store Genius Bar. Mostly, I am grateful for the emotional support in what amounts to a trying time for me. I have a really great group of friends and family and I wouldn't trade them for anything, including a new computer.

And this is why they call it Dell Hell

Timeline

April 7th - Top-of-the-line XPS Computer dies. Last words - "Hard drive failure." Fortunately for me, I have the Dell Super Duper You-Should-Never-Have-to-Worry-or-Suffer-Needlessly extended warranty plan. I feel confident in the personal guaranty I get from Dell.

April 8th - Called Dell support and say that the computer fails to boot. "I think it is hard drive failure, because the computer gasped with its dying breath, 'Hard drive failure.'"

Dell's response: "We think it is a Windows issue. Reinstall Windows and it will work fine."

It does not.

April 9th - Marathon SIX HOUR call with Dell support during which time we uninstall and reinstall Windows, erase and replace the BIOS, unpartition and repartition the hard drives (several times), and perform all manner of terrible remedies to the computer in hopes of reviving it.

None work.

Before we begin applying the electronic version of leeches to the XPS, the Dell support person asks, "We will have to erase the hard drive, is that ok?"

"No problem," say I. "I have all my information backed up on this external hard drive. As long as no one touches the external hard drive*, everything will be fine."

"I think it is the motherboard," says Dell support eventually. "We will send a technician out. You should receive a call from the technician within 48 hours."

The technician never calls.

*ominous foreshadowing

April 10th through April 17th - Wait for technician to call. Emailed Dell Support several times with issue number and nice little note asking about the technician call.

None of the emails responded to.

Used Dell Support Chat a couple of times from work and get runaround about how much they want to help, but unless I am sitting by the broken computer, pulling my hair our in frustration when they ask me to reinstall Windows one more time, there really isn't anything they can do.

April 18th - Talk to Dell support chat on my laptop while sitting in front of my broken computer. Dell says, "Oh, you are using the wrong Windows installation disc, the wrong Dell support disc, and the wrong Dell diagnostic disc. We will send you the right ones."

They send me the wrong ones.

Specifically, they send me the Dell diagnostic discs for their bottom-tier laptops instead of their top-tier XPS desktops so none of the drivers on the disc work. AND Dell sends a French-language Windows installer disc, apparently because they want to reward me by giving me the opportunity to learn a new language.

May 9th - Long, involved, multi-hour chat session with Dell support. Dell support person says that yes indeed , they sent the wrong discs and they can try to send the right discs again to me.

Logic dictates that if they just try enough times, eventually they might correctly address my problem once, right? Sadly, I am past the point of logic.

I express a level of frustration and contempt that gets me transferred to a supervisor. Dell supervisor tells me that I might have been right after all and that it probably isn't a software issue. They agree to send out a technician.

May 13th - Dell technician comes out to the house. Doesn't replace hard dives properly. Somehow, my 300GB hard drives gets magically replaced with a 150GB hard drive.

Also, the technician decides to plug in the external hard drive, the one I use as a backup into the computer and format it.

Apparently Dell technicians are NOT trained on the fact that FORMATTING A BACKUP DRIVE DESTROYS ALL OF THE BACKUP DATA ON IT.

May 16th - Dell support tells me that, yes, a Dell technician came into my house and effectively deleted about three years' worth of data. All the personal data. All the professional data. All of those iTunes files I paid for and backed up so that money wouldn't be wasted.

Everything. Now gone.

But somehow, thanks to the power of corporate magic Dell is not really responsible for this. They owe me nothing for my time and my grief and while they are very sorry for the fact I am effectively up the creek without a paddle, AND while they pretty much admit that they pointed me to this particular creek and then stole my paddle, I'm really on my own here.

So... um... that's my customer experience with Dell. I drop a large chunk of change and buy their top-tier computer and then pay extra for their top-tier customer and technical support and am rewarded by having my external back up hard drive erased.

Thank you Dell for taking all my money and then repeatedly kicking me in the virtual nutsack because it amuses you so. Thank you Dell for making me angry enough to blog about
what a craptacular waste of time and money your entire support network is.

But mostly Dell, thank you for giving me a story to share with each and every person I know who comes to me and asks what kind of computer they should buy. Because I plan on sharing this story with as many people as possible for years to come.

Almost Two Weeks!

I have gone almost two weeks since posting. What this usually means is that I do not have too much time on my hands. What with the video games and the web surfing and the loafing at the office and all, it is hard to piece together a few sentences and bad puns.

To make up for this, I am going to devote this entire blog post to explaining why I'm not posting as often. This can be interpreted as an extended whine, so if you aren't interested in nerdy white guys complaining, what are you doing on the internet?

(Also, for those of you who expect something on a regular basis from me, I would like to point you to my five-times-a-week blog WTFDVDs. It is not as awesome as this blog, but it is more consistent. Actually, that is a lie; it is just as awesome as this blog.)

At work, we are really putting in extra hours. There might be some interesting things happening, career-wise, but I am not counting chickens until they hatch. Anyway, I'm frightfully busy, and when I'm not busy, I am tired.

I want to write a full report about what a great time I had two weekends ago watching Iron Man and going to CAPE. However, the further in the past those events get, the less interested I am in writing about them.

Plus, sometime after CAPE, I read a book that takes place in Dallas, got angry because the author totally didn't "get" Dallas, and decided writing a book in response to that one just to set the record straight. It has got everything in it - a high murder rate, racial tensions, a large gay population, stadium construction, backroom politics, religion, traffic, and absurdly big hair - everything that Dallas is to me. I work on it during the painful parts of status meetings (which is why you should bring a notebook to those meetings!).

I also want to write a little about this past Mother's Day, which was awesome in every possible way. But, seriously, what is the interest in a "my-family-is-not-all-that-dysfunctional" story? I might as well rename this blog "The Happy Happy Fun Time Blog Where Nothing Goes Wrong Ever" and every person on the internet will hack and vandalize it just on general principle because I seem so darn smug.

I also want to write about the screenwriting contest I am entering. The Duke City Shootout short film contest ends on May 15th. The Final Draft Big Break contest ends on June 1st, and the AAA Screenwriting contest ends on June 28th. I am working my buttocks off getting material ready for those.

Plus, against all reason and common sense, I've decided to run for the board of the Dallas Screenwriter's Association. We shall see how that turns out.

Aaaaaand, that's about it for now. You may return to your regularly schedule web-surfing.

From My Uncle

My uncle recently tried his hand at film making. Now when any one asks me, "Seen any good movies lately?" I can answer, "Yes. Go see what I posted on the blog."

Overbooked This Weekend

I have this running joke about how I love Mondays because they are such a relaxing break after the weekend.

I constantly get over-scheduled on the weekends. Most of the time when I point this out, I usually make some sort of comment about the risks of marrying a Type A person. I did marry a Type A person and she does schedule a lot of stuff during the weekends, but this weekend is pretty much my fault.

Friday night, the Mrs. and I are attending a screening of Iron Man. My local comic book shop rents out movie theaters and puts quite a nice little shindig on opening nights.

On Saturday... whoo.

First of all, there is the CAPE, the comic and pop culture expo here in Dallas. Normally, I go to these things to spend lots of money, but this year, I am going to pass out business cards and network a little. I have some creative projects I would be interested in pursuing, and this is as good a place as any to get the ball rolling.

There is also a lecture on zero-energy construction that day. The Mrs. and I are really enthralled with the idea of building our own house someday, just to show people the right way to do it. If only there were the time to attend.

Finally, there is the Kentucky Derby that night. And we are invited to an infamous Kentucky Derby party we've heard about for years.

What will probably happen is CAPE during the day, and the Derby party in the evening. Unfortunately, the zero energy construction lecture will probably fall by the wayside. So sad.

And just to show that the weekend is full, the Mrs. and I are going to an Organ Recital on Sunday evening with our family members. Organ music can be very pretty and soothing sometimes.

Can't wait for Monday, when I can finally get some rest.

Gifted vs. Nerd

Whenever you hear about a homogeneous group of some sort, I can guarantee you that people in that group find ways to distinguish themselves from each other. I can always make my former-minister father laugh when a news story about Evangelical Christians comes on and I quip, "Because all Christians always agree on everything all the time." Having stood witness to the inner workings of church government most of his life, Dad finds this statement funny.

This theory works for pretty much every group I can think of. Only people outside of New York lump Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens under the label "New Yorkers." People who refer to Southerners as one big happy group of similar people have never been to a Clemson/Georgia game.



Divisions exist everywhere. Only recently, I discovered the huge academic rift and deep-seated rivalry between anthropologists and archaeologists. Which is surprising, but makes sense the more you think about the superstars in each field - anthropologists have Louis Leaky while the archaeologists have Indiana Jones. (I learned this from, of all places, the Lost podcast.)

I guess my group could be called "smart people." And, like all people in this group, I have this area of distinction where I like split hairs - gifted people vs. nerds. I have been in both camps at various times in my life, and have come to the conclusion that I dislike the gifted as much as I love the nerd.

Gifted people are just that - people with gifts. Which is to say, everyone on the planet. You can fail math but still be a gifted musician. You can be intensely socially awkward, but be a really gifted Java programmer. You can even be gifted in shoving a large number popcorn kernels up your nose. Ultimately it doesn't matter as long as you call yourself gifted.

The issue I have with gifted people is the gifted person attitude that comes from being overpraised. I understand all too well the way gifted children run to the sanctuary of academics or books to escape the whole thirteen-to-seventeen year mosh pit we call the educational system, but I also know that the sanctuary can instill a sense of overconfidence that doesn't fly in the real world. It is one thing to be smart, but that is not enough to get by in life. Just because you can do advanced math in your head, if you don't couple that with a disciplined work ethic, you might as well be flickin' boogers.

One of the worst people I ever worked with was a Mensa member. This person did nothing but brag about the aforementioned Mensa membership. Brag and insult the "stupid" and "incompetent" co-workers that plagued the workplace. This person never did any real work, got "sick" right before deadlines, and often blamed everyone else when projects failed. "I did not get the proper amount of support," was a popular excuse. So was, "If you people could get your act together, I wouldn't be in this situation."

I think of this person when I think of people calling themselves "gifted." You may have all the brains in the world, but if you don't do anything with them except sit back and complain, you are less than worthless.

Nerds are another matter. Nerds are defined by their unconditional love, passion, and dedication to a subject. There are Band Nerds, Math Nerds, and Photography Nerds. Someone can achieve total nerd status in a subject by simply doing an amount of work considered outside of the norm. You may like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but you aren't a Buffy Nerd unless you have memorized large chunks of each episode, read all of the comics, and dress up as one of the characters on Halloween.

Nerds love unconditionally and without shame. When presented a problem, even a management problem (for example, how can we import full software functionality within the prescribed six-week deadline with severe resource allocations thanks to the fact that our lead developer, Bryson, is getting married in Jamacia), nerds attack it with intense delight ("I know! All night pizza-and-coding parties!") that just don't occur to the non-nerd.

The ideal is, of course, to have someone who is both a gifted person and a nerd. It is a rare and wonderful thing for someone to be both passionate for a subject and possessing natural gifts and insights about the subject. However, if only one option is available, give me the nerds any day of the week.

Obligatory Summer Movie Preview Post

Because I have a blog, and because I like movies, I feel obligated to join the masses in saying what movies look good and what movies don't. I'm dividing the movies into various categories which are showing me

You Had Me At Teaser Trailer

Iron Man - I already have my ticket.



Standard Operating Procedure - I found out about two weeks after it happened that this played at the AFI Film Festival in Dallas. I am still steamed about this. Errol Morris needs to get as much of the world's money as possible. He does good things with it, like make movies.




Batman Begins Again... er... Batman: The Dark Knight - My problem with Christopher Nolan is that he thinks he is a genius when he is merely very clever. His art films are overly smug and pretentious. However, when he just sets out to do a big dumb summer blockbuster action film, he knocks it out of the park.



Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - You had me at the first announcement of the first press release. Sorry. I am a sucker.



Wall*E - You had me at "untitled Pixar 2008 project." Sorry. I am a sucker.



You Need Positive Word-of-Mouth to Get Me to Go to the Theater

Red Belt - I like the fact that Mamet keeps jumping around genres but remaining essentially Mamet.



Tropic Thunder - I am of the opinion that I don't need to like Ben Stiller because he loves himself enough for both of us. And while this sort of humor normally bothers me, Robert Downey Jr.'s blackface character managed to make me laugh.



Hancock - The teaser trailer left me totally cold. The 'American Idol' preview left me with an impression that this one might actually have a story instead of a series of action-oriented set pieces. Plus, I like the whole idea of equating super heroes with cantankerous sports figures.



Hamlet 2 - I normally don't like films that are loved at Sundance, but this has potential.



You Are One with Netflix


Hellboy 2 - I liked Hellboy, but really hated Pan's Labyrinth. This seems like it will be more of the latter and less of the former.



Get Smart - I don't watch movies based on old television shows. Its a principle thing. (And no, Batman doesn't count because it is based on the comics. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)



The Spirit - When I saw Sin City, about halfway through the movie, I said to myself, "This is just like the comics. I forgot how much I hate the comics."



Wanted - I really liked Night Watch and sort of tolerated most of Day Watch. But, seriously, this looks like a string of action set pieces with little-to-no story connecting them.



Only if Someone Offers Me Beer


Baby Mama - Seriously people, if you hire Tina Fey as an actress, you also need to hire her to do a script rewrite. Poor word-of-mouth killed this one for me.



Pineapple Express - Read the screenplay thanks to the power of the internet. Not my thing.



Hulk - I am still smarting from the first Hulk movie. Man, that Super Bowl trailer for the first Hulk movie was AWESOME, when Hulk was all THUMPA-DA THUMPA-DA THUMPA-DA and he grabbed the tank by the little tank snout and went WHISSSHEEEE WHOSSSSHHEEEE and spun it around and threw it in the air and the tank was like, "Whoooooaaaaaa! I'm flying, Jack!" Ok, THAT was awesome. I wanted to see the Hulk movie so bad. And then... I saw it. It is what it is, but it was not what I was wanting or expecting. And this is terrible, but when I saw the trailer for this film, all I could think of was, "The Hulk and the Abomination have such huge bodies and such tiny heads."



X-Files - Chris Carter used up my three-strikes-and-you're-out policy almost a decade ago.

The Happening - As much as I love your first initial, M. Night, The Village was strike three.



Speed Racer - As much as I like Wes Anderson, I do not like the trend of "Art Direction and Set Design equals story" that seems to have sprung up in his wake. Oh, and that scene in The Matrix where Trinity says, "I knew you were The One because I love you." Yeah... THAT was Strike One. Guess how your next two movies held up.



Sisterhood of the Mama Traveling Sex in the Mia Pants City Part 2! - I am not the target audience for this.

The Love Guru - No.

Six Things Best Left Unsaid

If you read the comments of my last post, you will see that Tera tagged me with this blog meme thing where I'm supposed to tell six unspectacular things about myself. I don't do stuff like this, but Tera has been nice about commenting on the blog and appreciative of the comments I made on her blog, so why not?

Here are the rules:
1. link the person who tagged you.
2. mention the rules in your blog…
3. tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours
4. tag 6 following bloggers by linking them. leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger’s blogs letting them know they’ve been tagged

1. I am terrible with names. It is very difficult for me to remember someone's name when they tell it to me. Ironically, I am very good with the secret nicknames I give people, because "Mr. Mullet," "ABBA Love Child," and "Flunkybutt" are much easier for me to remember.

2. I took one year of German and switched to Latin (for two years) because I wanted to take a foreign language where I didn't have to actually speak the language in front of other people. I compulsively translate college mottoes from Latin whenever I see them.

3. I have a personal scale of "how much I've had to drink" based on stupid things I do. I know I've reached my limit when I start doing my Fat Albert impersonation, and I know I've had way too much when I want to karaoke (I am particularly fond of the song "Brown Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison). I know I am near an alcohol coma when I try to sing karaoke Ace of Base in my Fat Albert voice ("I saw the sign, hey hey hey!"). Once my mother told me she would like to get me drunk because that is the only time I really open up and talk.

4. I wouldn't really use the term afraid, but I am... uneasy about visiting the dentist. I am also... uneasy about visiting the barber. Something about sharp or pointy things near my head irritates me, I guess. I also got anxious/nervous and accidentally bit my dentist during my last visit and think she is secretly harboring a grudge against me.

5. When losing a game of chess, I have been known to yell "Earthquake!" and shake the board so all of the pieces get repositioned or fall over. I have also secretly wanted the Franklin Mint's Civil War Chess Set ever since I was a kid.

6. I love breaking chain letters and chain blog things just to see if anything bad really happens.

So does this mean Amazon owns my identity now?

As many of you know, I have a blog where I ridicule DVDs based solely on their title and/or cover art.

Today's entry is a head-scratching little film called Who's your monkey?

Every once in awhile when I set up the Amazon link, I take a moment or two to read the reviews of the DVD in question - basically to gauge if I will get hate comments or not.

Imagine my surprise this morning when I saw a five star review for Who's your monkey? Having only seen the cover art and title, I can understand four stars, but five? Really?

Here's the review (click for larger image).



The most disturbing thing about the review was not the is-this-the-director's-mom-or-what vibe, but the fact that Amazon.com seems to have trademarked her Real Name. (click for larger image)



Does anyone know what this means? I did a quick Google search for "Amazon Real Name TM" and found this blog post from 2005. The blog entry doesn't really say anything more than, "Dude, Amazon is strange and kind of scary for ^TMing everyone's Real Name." Which is a healthy and good attitude to have about these things.

Unfortuantely, I do not have a Healthy and Good Attitude^TM about these things. I have decided to follow Amazon's example and just start trademarking Anything I Want to Trademark^TM.

Sincerely^TM

M. Robert Turnage^TM
Real Name^TM

This blog post^TM copyright M. Robert Turnage^TM. All rights reserved. Unlawful reposting of any and all content in this blog post will result in M. Robert Turnage^TM pressing his red button, which in turn will Release the Weasels^TM.